No Rule Of Procedure
by Jenwryn
Summary: Elizabeth/Rodney. Elizabeth and Rodney were a couple. Now he's gone and she's left to mourn him. Originally written for the mcweir fan fiction archives. There are references to Episodes 1.10 & 1.11.


_Disclaimer & A/N: All rights to Stargate Atlantis belong to someone else, and the same goes with the poem by H.D. This story was first written for the mcweir fan fiction archives. With a bit of editing, it's back up again._

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**No Rule Of Procedure.**

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_We know no rule of procedure, _

_We are voyagers, discoverers of the _

_Non-known, the unrecorded; _

_We have no map. _

_Possibly we will reach haven, heaven._

- adapted from H.D., "The Walls Do Not Fall", 1942.

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She stands, Elizabeth, on the balcony. How many uncountable times has she stood there before? Hands resting just so, head tilted a little in this direction, eyes gazing outwards across the sea - or inwards across herself; it's hard for the observer to tell. The evening breeze messes gently with her dark hair, flips it a little obscure her line of sight, but she leaves it where it lands, half-covering her eyes. Ah, so perhaps she does look inwards. Either way, her hands remain on the railing. If they weren't on the railing, the observer familiar with her habits would know, then they would probably be crossed across her chest, just beneath her breasts. Does she do it keep others out or to keep herself in? Maybe it is a desire to save herself from the broad, sweeping hand movements that she might be inclined to make but considers inappropriate to her position. Or is it that such sweeping hand gestures remind her of him? Is that it?

Maybe she simply feels the cold.

She doesn't seem to be feeling it at the moment. It is late and the sky is dulling, darkening, growing ill-defined at the edges of the horizon so far away beyond the expanse of ceaseless ocean. Summer is long gone and the air is sharp and gnawing; yet her arms are bare. Her jacket, if she wanted it, lies but a little distance away, folded carefully over the railing to her left. She doesn't seem to want it. And there is nobody to bring it to her, to order her to put it on despite herself. They are all leaving her alone. Everyone knows she needs space. Everyone has been instructed by Heightmeyer - though Elizabeth does not know it - to treat her gently and giver her room and be compassionate. Let her grieve.

Grieve. Is that what she does, there on the balcony? There are no tears on her face, its skin flushed pink in the icy wind. She does not appear sad. She does not, come to think of it, seem anything much at all. Perhaps she has no emotions. Perhaps she invested them in all in one vessel and now that he is gone, he has taken them all with him. No emotions? Ah - but the observer would err who believed that. Look, see the subtle movements she makes, see the way her eyes glide down towards her hands on the railings. Watch with care. Observe how her face softens, hardens, weakens, all at once, as she looks at her hands. As she looks at her ring.

Just the one ring. They were offworld when he proposed, when she said yes. Haven't you heard the story? The observer cannot look at her and not see it written on her face, once it has passed his ears. It is the story that matters most, it is the only story. How the scientist had asked for her hand without ever dreaming she would accept. How he had turned red when she did, and how he had been forced to confess the lack of an engagement ring. How she had laughed and called him silly and, most of all, how she had taken his face in her hands and kissed him and said she was happy just to have him and she didn't need a piece of stone to prove it.

Ah - see that slight twitch at the corner of her lips? That's her remembering the astonished, proud expression on his face, that's her remembering the love with which he'd looked at her.

If only the happy memories could last, could play on never-ending loop through her mind. If only that smile, hidden at the corners of her mouth, could blossom outwards instead of dying stillborn before it has begun. Oh, see instead how her body turns still as she thinks of the way that he went, his life given for hers - her knuckles whiten on the railing. How often she stands here, like this, here on this balcony. It isn't a balcony that it makes sense for her to go to, unless the observer knows her story and the story of the man she loved - the story of the man she loves still, though he is gone. It isn't even so much a balcony, come to think of it, so much as a grounding station... A grounding station, where once they huddled in a storm. The night she realised what he meant to her. The night he realised what she meant to him. Years would pass between that night and the day of his ringless proposal, but it was here that it all began.

It is here that she comes, now it is all over.

For the entirety of her life, she has always had a set path; goals, rules and regulations. A plan. That was then. Now the rug has been pulled from beneath her feet and she is left stranded. For this, there is no rule of procedure.

She, Elizabeth McKay, stands on the balcony and mourns her dead.


End file.
